Recovering from their harrowing Bucks County and Philadelphia case — The Final Encore — Nick and LuAnn Nova retreat to The Cape for peace. They rent a small seaside cottage near the forgotten town of Greyhaven , a place that seems suspended between seasons. But even their first night feels wrong: from across the dunes they hear the faint strains of carnival music and see flashes of light that shouldn’t exist — the remnants of a fairground fire that supposedly destroyed everything twenty years earlier. The locals don’t talk about the Greyhaven Summer Carnival of 2003 , or the tragedy that followed. When LuAnn befriends bookstore clerk Becky Morefield , she learns that not everyone believes the official story — and that a few people, including a former cop named Emmett Hale , might be keeping it alive for reasons darker than nostalgia. Nick uncovers a hidden basement in their cottage, along with a rusted metal box containing a ledger and a hand-drawn map leading toward the old lighthouse. Against Sheriff John Alden’s warnings, the Novas follow the trail, discovering that the fire wasn’t an accident, but a cover-up tied to smuggling, trafficking, and political corruption stretching up to nearby Gloucester. The barrels once hidden beneath the pier carried more than contraband; they carried evidence of something the town couldn’t face. Haunted by the ghostly lights of the “phantom carnival” , the Novas trace the clues to Mayor Brewster , who inherited the power structure that Hale once enforced. When they realize that Hale himself has been planting “tickets” around town — mementos from the old carnival, stained and torn — the case becomes personal. The tickets mark witnesses, and Nick and LuAnn are next. The climax unfolds amid smoke and flame as the pier burns again, the fire echoing the one that began the town’s silence two decades earlier. But this time the truth escapes with the flames: the hidden records, the recorded confessions, and the men who thought themselves untouchable. By dawn, Hale and the mayor are in custody, their network exposed. Beth, the local activist who risked everything to help the Novas, disappears quietly back to her life. Greyhaven begins to wake from its long quiet. Nick and LuAnn drive off The Cape without stopping. They spend the night at a budget motel , of all places — a neutral stop between nightmares — and finally, finally sleep. For once, no shadows follow them, no eyes at the window, just the ordinary hum of a hotel HVAC and the slow return of peace. Greyhaven won’t be the same. And neither will they.